Are they going to release me?". Being so close to the Green Zone, he thought someone important might be entering or leaving the area. [84], The other four went on trial starting on June 17, 2014;[5] ten weeks of testimony and 28 days of jury deliberations resulted in convictions for all four men on October 22, 2014. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq increasingly relied on private contractors, Blackwater being only the most infamous. [14], On October 2, 2007, the Democratic staff of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee released a report stating that Blackwater USA guards had used deadly force weekly in Iraq and had inflicted "significant casualties and property damage". Almost everyone who was killed or injured was shot in cars, taxis, or buses. Slough, Liberty and Heard were convicted on multiple charges of voluntary and attempted manslaughter in 2014, while Slatten, who was the first to start shooting, was convicted of first-degree murder. The pardons have reduced American talk of human rights to mere "slogans," he said, adding, "They prefer animals over humans, and then they talk about human rights, justice and humanity. Extending the hand of friendship, Russia significantly drawdown its forces along the western border before the summit last year. He was in the car next to Mohammed. And it will be a success, Im sure. But unsurprisingly, he did not describe who those thousands of daredevil volunteers willing to sacrifice lives and limbs in a foreign war were. But Trump reached a peace agreement with the Taliban and then lost the re-election bid before he could consider the bizarre proposal. Blackwater Worldwide - The New York Times "This was the slaughter of innocent civilians who were merely going about their day when a Blackwater convoy rolled through a traffic circle after having violated orders to stand down and not exit the Green Zone and began firing indiscriminately into cars that were carrying people going to work.". The Nisour Square massacre was the FBIs most comprehensive and expensive criminal investigation since 9/11. [6][86] Bringing the weapons charges was disputed within the Justice Department, which initially opposed including them in the indictment. The risk is now that the U.S., who has a presence worldwide, has exposure for how they might be treated or what people of other countries might think could happen or would happen if war crimes are committed by U.S. citizens abroad. Nicholas Slatten, Paul Slough, Evan Liberty and Dustin Heard were convicted six years ago in the killing of 14 Iraqi civilians and the wounding of 17 others. While the #RussianOligarchs are vile post-Soviet capitalists, the hypocrisy of the US media is revealing. December 23, 2020 at 2:57 pm. They then set off stun grenades to clear the scene. He thought they had been given a miracle after he saw so many others killed. More were arriving in the backs of trucks. Dozens of witnesses were brought to the United States to testify about what happened on September 16, 2007. [55], On April 1, 2009, the Associated Press reported that forensic tests on bullets were inconclusive. What Is Blackwater? [26][29], An Iraqi government account of the incident stated that as the convoy drew close to Nisour Square, a Kia sedan with a woman and her adult son in it was approaching the square from a distance, driving slowly on the wrong side of the road, and that the driver ignored a police officer's whistle to clear a path for the convoy. [101][102] The Iraqi Foreign Ministry urged the United States to reconsider, declaring the pardons "did not take into account the seriousness of the crime committed".[103]. Thats all it takes to support the journalism you rely on. "It was obviously excessive", a U.S. military official speaking on condition of anonymity told the Washington Post. The key people in this have not spoken with investigators. My clients assuredly feel ignored, mistreated, and used. The bullets rained through the roofs of cars, taxis and buses, he says. The US government said in a memorandum filed after the sentencing: None of the victims was an insurgent, or posed any threat to the Raven 23 convoy. The memorandum also contained quotations from relatives of the dead, including Mohammad Kinani, whose nine-year-old son Ali was killed. The White House further stated that the Court of Appeals "ruled that additional evidence should have been presented at Mr Slatten's trial", and recently that prosecutors said "that the lead Iraqi investigator, who prosecutors relied heavily on to verify that there were no insurgent victims and to collect evidence, may have had ties to insurgent groups himself". Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) - On Tuesday, Trump the Mad pardoned 4 Blackwater mercenaries who killed 14 Iraqi civilians, including a nine-year-old boy, with indiscriminate fire at Nisour Square in downtown Baghdad on September 14, 2007. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. [19] A Blackwater spokeswoman responded to the findings by saying Blackwater "supports the stringent accountability of the industry. [64], US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates testified before Congress that the Pentagon has sufficient legal authority to control its contractors, but that commanders lack sufficient "means and resources" to exercise adequate oversight. The report further said that Blackwater had reported that its forces fired first in over 80 percent of the cases. I had never imagined that Trump or any other politician would affect American justice.". [71], In December 2008, the United States Department of Justice announced it was filing criminal charges against five of the Blackwater employees, and ordered them to surrender to the FBI. [48] According to Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice promised a "fair and transparent" investigation into the incident. Ali was the youngest of Blackwaters victims that day. On Tuesday, President Trump pardoned 15 people, including Dustin Heard (from left), Evan Liberty, Nicholas Slatten and Paul Slough, the four former government contractors convicted for a 2007 massacre in Baghdad that left more than a dozen Iraqi civilians dead. [14], On October 13, 2007, the FBI reported that it had concluded that at least 14 of the 17 Iraqis who died in the square had been killed without cause. [32] In response to the guards' killing of the Iraqi policeman, other Iraqi police officers began to fire at the Blackwater men, who communicated to the State Department operations center that they were under attack. It is unfortunate and sad that those efforts have now been wasted. As Raven 23 was departing Nisour Square, several members continued to discharge their weapons, causing additional civilian deaths and injuries. [3][84] Prosecutors stated they reached their decision after an "assessment of the admissible evidence against him". [21]:116, During opening arguments for a criminal trial held in 2014, defense lawyers representing former Blackwater members of Raven 23 argued the men felt the approaching Kia was a credible threat as a possible car bomb, and opened fire in self-defense. In his testimony, Prince noted that, "It seems the ballistics analysis was done to prove the guilt of the Americans, not to just try to identify what happened there." The Kia continued to roll forward after the driver was killed, according to an eyewitness, and Raven 23 continued to fire on it, killing the passenger (the driver's mother); eventually, the Kia was struck by a grenade and was incinerated. Thats what lawyers do in the United States: We fight for those who cant fight for themselves. In 2014, four former government contractors who worked for Blackwater Worldwide, a security firm founded by Erik Prince an ally of Trump and the brother of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos were convicted in federal court in Washington in connection with the killings. Supporters of the former contractors at Blackwater Worldwide had lobbied for the pardons, arguing that the men had been excessively punished. When the Blackwater contractors were finally convicted seven years later in 2014, that was a sign of relief, but you needed political will for that. Trump Pardons Blackwater Contractors Who Killed Iraqis [15] The incident sparked at least five investigations, including one from the Federal Bureau of Investigation. In the middle of the attack, Mohammed could not understand why this man lying dead was a target. AP Iraqi police and Iraqi Army soldiers, mistaking the stun grenades for fragmentation grenades, opened fire at the Blackwater men, to which they responded. [41] Senate Democratic leaders said they planned to pass similar legislation as soon as possible. It looks at the rise of private security contractors such as Blackwater in the era of modern warfare. [2] Reactions [ edit] Six of my Blackwater brethren contractors are on the helicopter going to Tikrit. Since the harrowing Nisour Square massacre in Baghdad in 2007, the Blackwater private military contractor, renamed as Academi in 2011 and becoming a subsidiary of Constellis Group following a merger with Triple Canopy in 2014, has built quite a business empire for itself. "Pardoning them contributes to impunity and has the effect of emboldening others to commit such crimes in the future. [47], The U.S. State Department said it planned to investigate what it called a "terrible incident". Blackwater mercenaries in helicopters also fired into traffic from overhead. "This incident motivated the Iraqi authorities to seek the withdrawal of American troops from the country. On Tuesday, President Trump pardoned 15 people, including Dustin Heard (from left), Evan Liberty, Nicholas Slatten and Paul Slough, the four former government contractors convicted for a 2007 massacre in Baghdad that left more than a dozen Iraqi civilians dead. Now justice has been undone by the stroke of a pen," Sarah Holewinski, the organization's Washington director, said in a statement. As he was leaving, his youngest son, who was affectionately given the nickname Alawi, asked to go with his father. He lay in the hallway for an hour before he died. It was an honor to represent these victims and their families. Nicholas Slatten, 35, was a former security guard at the private US military firm Blackwater and was based in Baghdad. [40], On October 11, 2007, the Center for Constitutional Rights filed suit against Blackwater USA under the Alien Tort Claims Act on behalf of an injured Iraqi and the families of three of the seventeen Iraqis who were killed by Blackwater employees during the September 16, 2007, shooting incident. Former Blackwater guards sentenced for massacre of unarmed Iraqi Scores of Iraqis injured in anti-government protests in Baghdad, Who will protect us?: Baghdad residents wait out fighting as city grinds to halt, Iraqi cleric tells loyalists to return to their homes after fighting in Baghdad, Deadly violence in Baghdad after leading cleric Moqtada al-Sadr says he is quitting politics, Shia factions mass in Baghdad raising fears of more unrest, Protesters storm Iraq parliament again amid unrest over Iran-backed groups, Iran may eventually get its way in protracted power struggle in Iraq, Hundreds of protesters storm Iraq parliament in support of cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, Briton jailed in Iraq for smuggling antiquities to be freed, says lawyer. Blackwater Trial: What You Need to Know - NBC News [28] Nicholas Slatten was found guilty of first-degree murder, and Slough, Liberty and Heard were found guilty of voluntary and attempted manslaughter charges, and of using a machine gun to commit a violent crime. [21][75] In the memorandum opinion, Judge Urbina ruled the cases against Slough, Liberty, Heard, Ball, and Slatten had been improperly built on testimony given in exchange for immunity;[76] that evidence included statements the guards had been compelled to give to State Department investigators, and as these statements would have been self-incriminating, they could not be used as evidence under the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Before embarking on the clandestine Kyiv visit, Erik Prince consulted with Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Director National Intelligence Avril Haines, with whom his relationship goes a long way the back to the early nineties after she purchased a bar in Fells Point, Baltimore, which had been seized in a drug raid. Monday's sentencing was. After capturing Kherson yesterday, Russian forces even apprehended several suspicious and armed foreign nationals who are currently being interrogated by Russias military intelligence GRU. A rocket grenade was fired into the car next to him. Our civil case resulted in a resolution that was acceptable to the parties. [23]:32 Shortly after assuming their positions, "Raven 23" began firing on civilians in response to an approaching car, killing fourteen and wounding twenty more. "Paul Slough and his colleagues didn't deserve to spend one minute in prison," Brian Heberlig, a lawyer for Slough, told The Associated Press. The expense was to show the people of Iraq that the U.S. government would hold people accountable for their crimes, no matter when or where they were committed. He was ensured a fair trial and convicted for his crimes. The Nisour Square massacre was the FBI's most comprehensive and expensive criminal investigation since 9/11. Trump Just Pardoned Those Convicted Killers", "Pardons in killings of Iraqi civilians stir angry response", "Chief of Blackwater Defends His Employees", "Tracing the Paths of 5 Who Died in a Storm of Gunfire", "Blackwater Execs Remain Free as Guards Convicted for Killing 14 Iraqis in Massacre", Use of white phosphorus by the United States, United States and the International Criminal Court, A Responsible Plan to End the War in Iraq, "The wrong war, at the wrong place, at the wrong time", AfghanIraqi Freedom Memorial (Salem, Oregon), The Iraq War: A Historiography of Wikipedia Changelogs, Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Nisour_Square_massacre&oldid=1141803510, Violent non-state actor incidents in Asia, People convicted of murder by the United States federal government, Pages using embedded infobox templates with the title parameter, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 26 February 2023, at 22:05. [37][38] The incident caused Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to call on the U.S. government to end its contract with Blackwater USA,[39] and for the Iraqi government to push for an apology, compensation for victims or their families and for the guards involved in the shooting to be held "accountable". The security industry has evolved drastically since those events, and under the direction of new ownership and leadership, Academi has invested heavily in compliance and ethics programmes, training for our employees, and preventative measures to strictly comply with all US and local government laws.. LONDON and BAGHDAD -- When news broke that Mohammed Kinani's son's killers, Blackwater private military contractors hired by the U.S. government in Baghdad, were pardoned Wednesday by President Trump, Kinani said it was like losing his 9-year-old boy all over again. However, after "Raven 23" entered Nisour Square, Watson was ordered to "lock down the traffic circle to expedite the travel of [the other Blackwater team]". The September 16, 2007 shootings by Blackwater mercenaries left 14 Iraqis dead and wounded 18 others in Baghdad's Nisour Square. - Asser Institute (Decision Date: 31 December 2009)", "Ex-Blackwater Guards Face Renewed Charges", "Blackwater guards face new U.S. charges for Iraq shooting deaths", "Legal questions loom in Blackwater convictions", "Blackwater guards found guilty in Iraq shootings", "Emails Reveal Discord Over Blackwater Charges", "Ex-Blackwater Guards Sentenced to Long Prison Terms in 2007 Killings of Iraqi Civilians", "U.S. Appeals Court Tosses Ex-Blackwater Guard's Conviction in 2007 Baghdad Massacre", "Murder conviction in Blackwater case thrown out, other sentences overturned", "In Blackwater Case, Court Rejects a Murder Conviction and Voids 3 Sentences", Recent Case: D.C. Mohammed quickly got out of the car and saw blood inside the rear window. The kind of reporting we do is essential to democracy, but it is not easy, cheap, or profitable. The other three guards faced decades in prison; the weapons charges carried a minimum 30-year sentence under a law enacted during the 1990s cocaine epidemic. Slattern was sentenced to life and the others to 30 years in prison each. Mohammed turned his bullet-riddled SUV around and drove back to the closest hospital only a few blocks behind him. US pardons Blackwater guards: An 'affront to justice' - UN experts [19] The three justifiable killings were those of the two passengers in the white Kia sedan and an unidentified Iraqi nearby. "I don't know what I did to Blackwater," Kinani told ABC News. The report found that the use of contractors such as Blackwater was a "new form of mercenary activity" and illegal under international law; however, the United States is not a signatory of the 1989 UN Mercenary Convention banning the use of mercenaries. These convictions happened under the Obama Administration. Now they'll go free. That may be the overriding damage caused by these pardons. No wonder Russia formally issued an ultimatum on Tuesday, March 1, that it would target the hub of covert warfare. There are numerous reported incidents of mass murder conducted by US soldiers, special forces. Depicting a doomsday scenario in order to malign Russias calculated offensive in Ukraine to minimize collateral damage, mainstream reporting focused today on thefire that broke out [1] at Zaporizhzhia plant, one of Europes largest nuclear power plants situated 550 km southeast of Kyiv. In 2013, Academi subsidiary International Development Solutions received an approximately $92million contract for State Department security guards. Mohammed was thrilled when the U.S. entered Baghdad years earlier in 2003. How is Eric Prince still breathing? In their view, this confirmed that they were under attack by a vehicle bomb, whereupon they fired at the car, killing both people in it as well as the Iraqi policeman. "[51][52][53], On January 19, 2008, The New York Times reported that the contractor responsible for many of the deaths in the engagement, previously known only as "turret gunner no. He was shot while seated in a public bus. [16] The FBI investigation found that, of the 17 Iraqis killed by the guards, at least 14 were shot without cause. . [34], In the immediate aftermath of the attacks, Blackwater's rights to conduct work in Iraq were temporarily suspended. And none of the I.P. The incident was allegedly resolved only after another Blackwater contractor pointed his weapon at the man still firing and ordered him to stop. The incident happened at the height of the "military surge" ordered by the then President George W. Bush to bring the armed resistance against the occupation in Iraq under control. Erik Prince, chairman of the Prince Group, LLC and Blackwater USA, tesifies during a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in 2007. pardon four Blackwater private security contractors, US announces troop withdrawals from Iraq and Afghanistan. ", Human Rights Watch says the pardons "show contempt for the rule of law.". Iraqi traffic police initially tried to wave down the Blackwater men that there was no threat, but they too had to run for cover. Not a one! I felt I had done that, and I knew the prosecutors were doing that. His sister was safe. Bullets were everywhere. Then one of his sisters children said that Ali was hurt. [87], On April 13, 2015, federal district judge Royce C. Lamberth sentenced Slatten to life in prison, while the other three guards were sentenced to 30 years in prison each. A. Blackwater and its employees had been given immunity from any criminal or civil exposure in Iraq that was part of Princes contract with the State Department. An Iraqi policeman went over to the car, possibly to help the passenger, but the vehicle kept moving and it looked to the guards as if the policeman was pushing the car towards the Blackwater TST. When Blackwater security guard Nicholas Slatten was tried and convicted for murder and sentenced to life imprisonment, the U.S. legal system determined that he needed a new trial. The Blackwater mess has roiled Capitol Hill and shined light on the many questions surrounding the legal status, management, oversight and accountability of the private military force in Iraq,. Donald Trump has pardoned four security guards from the private military firm Blackwater who were serving jail sentences for killing 14 civilians including two children in Baghdad in 2007, a massacre that sparked an international outcry over the use of mercenaries in war. FBI investigators who visited the scene in the following days described it as the My Lai massacre of Iraq a reference to the infamous slaughter of civilian villagers by US troops during the Vietnam war in which only one soldier was convicted. When Slattens conviction was overturned, I was concerned that the case would be ignored. The Beginning Blackwater USA began in 1997 by Al Clark and Erik Prince. The Intercept is an independent nonprofit news outlet. The black-ops of NATOs mercenaries in Ukraine were being directed from Ukraines Security Service (SSU) headquarter and the main center for information and psychological operations in Kyiv. To understand the carnage that happened on the streets that day, you need to hear it in Mohammeds words as he explained it to me. The aide also said that the Iraqi government was pushing for an apology, compensation for victims or their families and for the guards involved in the shooting to be held "accountable". [41], On September 18, 2007, an Iraqi Interior Ministry spokesman said Blackwater is "not allowed to operate anywhere in the Republic of Iraq". "I am overwhelmed with emotion at this fantastic news.". The killing of innocent civilians, including two young boys, sparked international outrage and public scrutiny into the use of private military companies . A burnt car at the site where Blackwater guards opened fire on a crowd in Baghdad, Iraq, in 2007. [40] The US House passed a bill, titled the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act, that would make all private contractors working in Iraq and other combat zones subject to prosecution by U.S. Blackwater Mercenaries Sentenced for 2007 Iraq Massacre The traffic circle, Nisour Square, was only a block away from one of the main entrance gates to Baghdads Green Zone. For us, for everyone. Opinion | Trump's Most Disgusting Pardons - The New York Times I commented when the convictions were first brought that I was certain my clients who were still residents of Iraq were pleased to know that justice had been served.